As Vex's eyelids fluttered open, the world expanded into a swirling mass of indistinct shapes and colors. He groaned as nausea churned in his stomach like an unwelcome guest. Notifications flickered at the edge of his blurred vision, their contents momentarily unreadable.

  "Ugh, why me?" he mumbled, his words slurring together like a chunk mojito. "Well, the joke is on you, world. I've had worse hangovers. I think…"

  He attempted to sit up, but his limbs felt like overcooked noodles, refusing to support his weight. Beads of sweat dotted his brow as he struggled, his body trembling with effort. After several grueling attempts, he finally managed to prop himself up on shaky elbows.

  His surroundings slowly came into focus, revealing the endless night of his guild domain. Vex scanned the area, realizing he wasn't entirely sure where he was. He could recall the elder gremlin, the crawling—so much crawling—but not his arrival at the small survival shelter or the odd clearing below where he now rested.

  "Okay," Vex whispered, his head throbbing in time with his racing heart. "One step at a time."

  As the notifications sharpened in his vision, Vex opened them, squinting at the text while battling the lingering haze.

  "Apparently, near-death experiences are great for gaining new skills," he thought dryly, scanning the updates. He had leveled up in crawling, focus, and willpower. He had even snagged a couple of points in sprinting and breathing. Vex didn’t consider the gains to be glamorous or world-changing, but they still represented progress.

  Then Vex reached the notifications for his Shadowlings, and his eyes widened with each new line. He wasn't in complete disbelief at reading that Sir Sneaks had killed the elder—despite the level disparity.

  A shudder ran through Vex as he recalled the attack and how the creatures moved—organized and purposeful. Before the plateau, they had been docile, keeping their distance. Likely because of the elder, the Gremlins had become organized and extraordinarily dangerous.

  Pondering aloud while still looking at the notifications, Vex calmly asked the question his mind had been building up to, "If the elder gremlin was somehow controlling the lessers, then what would they do without him?"

  Almost on cue, the sounds of commotion brought him out of his introspection. Forcing the notification screens closed with a bit of willpower, he blinked his eyes a couple of times and focused his dulled senses on the world around him.

  With his vision clearing and heart pounding, Vex slowly crawled to the edge of the shelter and quietly spied on the scene unfolding before him. Chaser and Strikesies were moving with a sense of urgency, their wispy shadow forms darting around the edge of the clearing. As Vex stared at the shadowy figures a bit longer, he realized they were on the outskirts of a massive pit lined with thick logs and a giant stone at the center.

  "Hey," Vex called out weakly, trying to get their attention. "What's going on?"

  Chaser glanced back at Vex, offering a quick motion of dismissal before returning to their task. Strikesies, however, didn't even acknowledge the question as they focused on throwing bits of a dry, black, flaky substance into the center of the pit.

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  "Alright, I guess I'll just...watch then," Vex muttered, curiosity piqued by the mysterious spectacle. He couldn't help but feel like he was peeking behind the curtain of some forbidden ritual, his gaze drawn to the peculiar actions of his loyal Shadowlings.

  Eventually, Chaser and Strikesies moved to the center of the pit and pulled out a couple of familiar-looking clay pots from the inventories, pouring the contents into the rock. The liquid faintly shimmered as it flowed from the vessel, reflecting an unsettling mixture of light and shadow. From above, Vex could vaguely see the liquid pooling within the hollowed-out stone, creating a small well of the eerie crimson liquid.

  "Was that my blood?" Vex wondered aloud, his mind racing with conjecture. "What the hell did the elder do to it, and how did these two get it back?"

  Chuckling weakly at his lack of knowledge, Vex was forced to wince as a fresh wave of pain washed over him. Gritting his teeth, he was forced to admit that he didn't have the strength to continue watching from his current position. With a resigned sigh, Vex settled back against the concealed shelter; his gaze forced away.

  Before Vex could fully settle down, a distant rumbling echoed across the swamps and the nearby woods. Briefly peaking out from the shelter, Vex spotted a familiar sea of white fur and teeth surging towards his location with frenzied determination, their eyes glowing like eerie lanterns in the night.

  While his brain was busy catastrophizing, Vex realized that his body lacked the capacity for true concern. Outside of scootching down inside the confined space to hide a bit better, there was nothing he was physically capable of doing.

  So, with his fate already self-determined, Vex lay back down amidst the dried foliage he was using as a makeshift bed and embraced the inevitable. With eyes closed, Vex did his best to take solace as a cacophony of guttural noises filled the eternal darkness.

  As heavy stomps and soft crunching sounds underpinned the guttural noises, Vex was left to assume that the hoard had swirled into the pit and would only be moments before they discovered the little shelter.

  Yet, as the seconds passed, the inevitable ending of his life hadn't appeared. Instead, the slow, almost rhythmic sound of claws on stone filled the air. Deciding to take a risk, Vex propped himself up on his elbows again and peeked out into the night.

  The frenzied gremlins were swarming around the pit, their desperation driving them to claw at one another in a desperate attempt to find purchase on the rock at the center of the pit. Their beady eyes glinted with unbridled hunger; their sharp teeth bared as they fought to reach the mysterious contents locked within.

  Lost in observation, Vex almost missed Chaser as they darted towards the firepit, effortlessly scooping up a glowing pile of embers with a small flat block of wood. Despite the intense glow, none of the gremlins moved from the pit as the board was secured to a tied-off sapling Vex hadn't seen before.

  As Vex slowly made the connection of the sapling to Saturday morning cartoons, Chaser slashed down at the rope with their spear, sending the embers flying through the air like a fiery storm, arcing gracefully toward the pit before raining down upon the frenzied gremlins.

  When the glowing sparks made contact with the bottom of the pit, a violent burst of flames erupted, engulfing everything in a blazing inferno.

  The night air immediately filled with the guttural screams and thrashing of the burning gremlins, their cries echoing mercilessly throughout the clearing. The smell of charred flesh and singed fur invaded Vex's senses, making him gag and turn away from the gruesome sight. But despite the horror unfolding before him, he couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of satisfaction.

  With his heart pounding in his chest, Vex turned to see the Shadowlings dancing above the pit like dark specters, their movements fluid and graceful amidst the chaos. The eerie sight sent shivers down Vex's spine as he began to grasp the true nature of his otherworldly companions.

  As the fiery pit continued to crackle and burn and the notifications began to roll in, Vex couldn't turn his gaze from the Shadowlings as they remained alight with a primal delight in the carnage they had wrought.